One of the things I love about old photographs is the way they capture the essence of a time period in a way that thousands of words cannot.
That point hit home recently as I looked through a stash of photographs from my late father, Robert Strongman, and uncovered some of his dog-eared and slightly yellow photographs of a sports car race at Chanute Air Force Base just south of Rantoul, Ill. They were published in the September, 1953 issue of Road and Track magazine, and he was paid $4 a picture.
My dad grew up in Decatur, Ill., my hometown, and died in 2002 at age 87. He gave up driving a bread truck to work in a camera store and eventually became chief photographer at the Herald & Review newspaper. For more than 50 years as a photographer, his ever-present cigar, quick smile and a camera gave him the chance to chronicle life in a medium-sized Midwestern town.
I picked up my interest in photography by helping him cover University of Illinois football games. He stuck a camera in my hand and said, “If they run your way, punch the button.” My first picture was published when I was 16, and it was of football.
My interest in cars came from my dad and my older brother, Jerry. My dad gave me my first ride in a sports car in 1952: a black XK-120 Jaguar that belonged to his friend and car dealer, “Honest John” Kilborn. Kilborn sold sports cars alongside Dodges and Chryslers, and he soon earned a fair amount of fame on the racetrack, mostly at the wheel of a Ferrari. My brother and I built a hot rod when I was in junior high, and that began a lifelong sharing of auto enthusiasm. Jerry lives in Denver.
It was only natural that my father’s interest in sports cars led him to photograph a few races. These photographs from Chanute are the only ones I have.
Races were often held on airport runways like the one at Chanute. Many drivers drove their car to the track, taped over the headlights, put a number on the door and took off the hubcaps (unless the car had wire wheels). Drivers wore sports shirts and thin little helmets. Roll bars didn’t exist, and many drivers didn’t use seat belts on the theory that they wanted to be thrown clear of the car in case of an accident (that idea sounds doubly silly today).
As I did some Internet research about this race, I discovered that E. Tom Newcomer of Overland Park won his class in an XK-120. I called longtime local car enthusiast and former racer, Joe Egle, to ask if he knew Newcomer.
“Tom Newcomer was tall, thin, and a darned good race driver,” Egle said. “One time I was driving a C-Type Jaguar and Newcomer was in a small, lightweight car of a kind I can’t recall, but he drove circles around me.” The Kansas City Region of the Sports Car Club of America’s Driver of the Year Award is named after E. Tom Newcomer.
Looking back at this early sports car race through my dad’s lens helps explain how I learned to like cars and photography.
